Shadowrun: Circles

Hanging with Kwei we meet one of his friends Kai Rin, and he is most interesting. being, aligned with the triads. That and tagging people on their ears. And listening to Wao Chai, spinning what happened about the raid into a terrorist attack (Crashing a helicopter does wonders doesn’t it?). Looking to sell my dongle over the matrix, i hail a taxi and head home. And recalling the information i was just given, Use my tag eraser on my ears as im in the . While relaxing for a bit, I look up the copter. I find that its crashed in a building because of a massive failure of its internals. I am proud of my little abominations, terrifying to all the folk that are not of my aligning nature.

We were called up more for a pro bono job looking for the yakuza courier that didn’t show up at the meeting. I wait more for at least a crumb that i can search on but with the situation.. Vory and the Yakuza are at each other’s necks, and we are looking for a Yakuza courier. This means that we are either going to hack into a Yakuza system or asking the Vory if the killed any couriers.. well.. this is a problem.

Looking for who is starting the ruckus i find, Ishida Shojiro- head of oldest Yakuza servant house, highly racist against everyone but japanese humans, brother died 20 years ago in a car crash. (late 50’s), is on the crusade. And is the head of the skuffles between the Vory and the Yakuza.

Before getting to Imperial Ramen i close up my little creation, take a taxi as i hear Titans urgent need for identification of a person, i hail a taxi.

The courier is a female its up in the air of if shes alive or dead but after this, its very little time before he checks his phone. so i just hog out on his information, vent it to titan and kill his commlink. Im expecting that there is more madness underneath us now.

Death and Delivery

Since the last communique, I went into the belly of some horrible laboratory, faced down some twisted (and I say that with special inflection) version of an infected, and got our pay.

The van, damaged as it was, was enough to get us down to the place the ghouls told us about. It was a hole in the ground, with some kind of weird looking magic overtop it; something neither Titan nor I had seen before. We did a bit of investigation, but neither of us could figure it out. So what the heck, most things are reversible. I put my hand in, and upon attempting to pull it out found I was missing some skin.

Someone should have put a sign up. I mean, especially considering what we found down there. This one-way ward seemed to be to keep something down there. So why would you NOT have a sign to say “warning, stay out you idiot”?

So we jumped in. I levitated along the walls. Frei glided down. Titan climbed, as did the new addition to our group. Not sure why we picked up the stray, but no one seemed to question it, so I didn’t either.

At the bottom we found a cross between a penitentiary and abattoir. And also a lab. Because crossing three is better.

We attempted to sneak through the halls, but the monstrous something probably smelled us. Or, at least, smelled Titan or Freak. The Raven somehow keeps my smell muted.

It appeared at one end, filling the confines to the brim, and we brought out the guns. Well, they did. I don’t do guns, though it seems most problems we find are solved by guns. So maybe I should get one.

What little magic I could get through I did. Bullets flew. Blood spilled – thankfully mostly theirs – and it all ended with some kind of death curse that nearly wiped Freak out of existence. But, luckily for him, I have been stopping magic from killing my friends (and people killing something trying to kill me count as that at least until combat is over) for quite some time.

The giant thing keeled over, turned into some kind of blood mannequin, and then evaporated. Or something. It happened fast. But, hey, weird things sell to the right people. So we gathered up the giant beastie, which I had to levitate behind the van very slowly since it wouldn’t fit, and the three smaller loup-garous, which we managed to knock out.

We drove the stolen monsters back through the hidden entry way, and dropped off the normal loup-garous off by Fae Lung’s place. We took the big, possibly huge, payday off to a freezer recommended by Fae, who had a 80% chance of forgetting we asked him for a refrigerated, no-questions-asked storage locker. Hopefully we’ll find a buyer for that thing soon. Otherwise we’re out 2k a month. But we were all guessing blood magic, so there’s a good chance someone will pay to do some research. Hopefully someone trying to beat the blood mages, but either side pays.

Frei's Journal

So we arrive at the location the overly sensitive ork spoke of before had his guys blow up the roof, asshole, however at first glance there was nothing just an empty and strange “room” with a water filled pool of some sort but we stepped out of the Sturmwagon to get a close look, on the note of that truck Kijiku is going to kill me.

Well turns out that the water was not water but a one way barrier and once we got down I wanted to go back out, the background count was mean in fucking hell scape kind of way, something really fucked up happened here.

As we explore the hidden compound the thing that kept creeping up in my mind was that this place must have had been an magical RnD facility of some sort and most likely not of the legal verity however that have been abandoned along time ago but as we explored one of the cell blocks our targets showed up looking to ambush us and while the fight went relatively nobody died and we got our three targets.

Well that ass of an ork should be happy we took care of this pack as they were not feral but most likely kidnapped victims of the huge beast that ruled them with blood magic, something else that struck me was the big beast might have been just another victim of the real monster behind it, the blood spirit possessing it, this place makes my ruff stand on end and my skin to crawl something fierce what ever went down here was really, really nasty and blood magic was involved.

Good thing we could get the body of the beast out, along with the three subjects that had been promised those would go to our employer while the big boy well the draco foundation offers plenty of nuyen for all things blood magic related and I know how to contact them, ill have talked to Kijiku about her sturmwagon and its condition but that will be the last thing I do with this team, also I am really sick of eating dirt but to be honest I am getting used to that now, not that I really wanted to ever get used to something like that.

Thoughts of a New Excursion

-Met elderly magical woman that seems to not like Frei too much, add a kink dungeon/ operating theater. Kuei was left behind to stay with her. And after waiting at the van, practicing guitar.
-Surprise Surprise, Frei knows big burly men. How charming of the little one. And the fact that they are brothers working for an elderly woman is so charming.
-And now, down in a abandoned metro station, in the dark. Scraping of paint and watching Frei grit her teeth as she drives.. is this van not hers? Then Titan going out to converse with his.. friends… and… wait why the hell is the building teeming with wireless signals? Ah..its a museum of body parts. I like this, one day if i come back with Titan.. I hope to buy from them and make a certain thing. A drone, a drone all of my own design. out of things meant for short willed bastards, charming.
- After this almost getting blown up, i do question the competency of this group’s ‘fearless’ leader. but i cannot speak i had thought to explode the building with me inside it.
-And Titan has a new gun of proportions with a larger frame and from a ghoul with self esteem issues. Now we are looking for more INFECTED freaks of nature. I’m hoping to get my drone back online after this excursion.

Into the breach again

After picking up the loaner from Kichiku; Frei, Kuei and myself headed to the Walled City in search of ghouls to harvest. We gave this beast a solid once over, identifying a number of shielded smuggling compartments, one of which has enough of a semtex variant to take out a few city blocks at least. There was some brief discussion of what to do with the explosives, but in the end we decided to leave them be where they were.

We arrived at the entrance to the car park to find it blockaded by the HKPD, some residents clearly decided the commotion around town was an excellent opportunity to cause havoc and break loose from the walls. After some discussion, Frei bribed Officer Li Yeung gaining us entry into the car park leading to the tunnels underneath the Kowloon. Hopefully, we’ll find a few suitable ferals, tag and bag them in a suitably healthy state, and get out of here before finding anymore Fomoraig like we had to deal with last time we were here.

While working our way into the tunnels, we came across a rather odd individual skulking about on his own. He was clearly trying to camouflage himself, but the guy is a true odd duck. Looks like some horrible interbreeding experiment gone wrong between a troll and an elf. Imagine an elf with horns and a tail no less. We decided we had more important things to worry about and kept to our plan.

Come to find out after all this effort, we aren’t even supposed to be after multiple functioning ghoul hearts, but a loup-garou heart. Yay for us, maybe we’ll get lucky and find one or someone who can point us in the right direction. Fae Lung really is incompetent.

While searching for some sign of anything useful, we stumbled upon the remains of the banshees we dealt with a while ago, apparently they hadn’t wisened any sense our last encounter. They attempted to ambush us, and as last time it didn’t go well for them. The odd fellow we spotted before decided to join in the fun, luckily for him he chose the right side, although he nearly got shot for not making himself known properly. We managed to take a couple of them down and convince the others that it was in their best interests to leave, maybe we can get some worthwhile info out of these “ladies”, although they really look like they’ve seen better days.

Kuei's Log

We got the Vory their pounds of flesh. We broke through an ambush – that I still don’t see how they could have set up in time. We carried these probably-regretful thieves through empty buildings under gunfire. Then we got stiffed in cash. I tried to play nice with the underlings. Who knows, the way Ioakim treats people, these guys might run the joint some day. Plus, a guy remembers when you heal a broken rib for nothing.

So we take our shiny new guns – and really, where does a guy store that? One raid from the police and bam, in jail for possession of automatics. I’m hiding enough in my freezer to get me on a few lists already.

I shunted the new rifle off with Titan. He was definitely keeping his at his place, so why not keep mine too. It’s no more risk for him than the one, I assume. Honestly, no idea how the law works? Multiple counts of illegal firearms?

And so I had a snack to stave off the hunger: some Elf Fae Lung’s guys had given me. I’d taken to going in under a new disguise each time, and I began buying in bulk – a week or two at a time. I had the pass codes and everything, so they let me buy without too much hassle, especially since nuyen is nuyen. So maybe eventually they’d forget the face of a starving human who somehow finally figured out what he was craving one terribly unforgettable night.

Elf tasted fine. Probably some schmuck who died in my line of work. We don’t usually retire, I hear. Though whatever Schild is, she seems pretty dead set on living through a 50 cal round. Wonder how much she’s worth to the right people. Wonder how much I’m worth. Wonder what kind of infected I am.

Anyways, rent and debt don’t pay themselves, so the next “morning” I was gonna get a new job. But I wake up and the news is all atwitter about some power outage and water shortage. I check the tap and sure enough, it’s dry after what was left in the pipes – the one time being at the bottom of the gravity flow helped. Thankfully I had the foresight to get that in a cup, but it was going to be a thirsty day it seemed.

Apparently, Schild and Titan had run a few errands, but it seemed they hadn’t lined up a gig. So I called around to see what’s what. Chun To didn’t have anything. Her lab was running normally. But maybe they’d need a prototype stolen or small time enemy trashed at some point. It was always interesting talking to her – largely trying to get her to divulge trade secrets.

Fae Lung didn’t answer. He’s pretty unreliable and insane, I think. Probably some prion disease from eating his own product when he didn’t need to, like me.

Kai Winn paid off. The mad genius was in the middle of some bank job it sounded like – with the power still out in parts of the city and small time riots and looting to occupy the police, it was a free-for-all dash for cash. Kai was excited to get me in on the action and hooked me up with a fixer out of San Po University.

I met up with Titan and Schild there and we concocted a terrible story to get by. Mostly, I was surprised when Schild couldn’t just bamboozle her way through, but I guess security was tighter than usual. I would’ve just hopped or levitated over a fence somewhere. But hey, sometimes going through the front isn’t too bad.

Inside the one lively building on the walled campus, a bit of a party was going on. Seemed this place had water, and wasn’t gouging more than a university pub normally does, so it drew a big crowd. Bartender directed us down the stairs. Useful guys, those barkeeps.

Some silly racer chick ran into me on the way up. Or I ran into her. Whatever. Schild seemed intimidated and slightly awed, but honestly I didn’t care. Titan is intimidating, but really only when he’s got a gun or up close with a fist. And only slightly then. Some woman who can drive a car fast? Eh. She seemed surprised when someone wasn’t fawning over her (uh, I guess we was a pro racer or something), so I was happy to throw her off balance.

We found the Mr. Auchmann in the basement of University pub. Down there he offered us a rather crap job. I forget what the heck it was, really. Extract someone? Maybe?

Oh well, whatever. He made the mistake of mentioning a job that pays 20k. Capture some ghouls. Seemed right up our alley. I was pretty sure Schild is immune or maybe we could just kill her, let her regen, and the virus would be out. Titan seemed unlikely to get bitten or anything. And myself? Well, I’m already down that road.

So we took it. Turns out, Fae Lung was running point on that one. Hahaha. Naturally. We tried to get specifics, but it was a bit of a confusing thing. We’re pretty sure we can’t kill the ghouls. We can’t magic them unconscious. We can’t poison them. But, at least, they can be ferals. Not sure I’d be okay with hunting my own kind-ish. Well, guess I’m okay hunting humans, but only if they deserve it (though let’s be honest, most people in Hong Kong deserve it). But you oppress a group of people long enough, and THEN someone hunts them for their possibly magical “components”? That’s just dirty. So I talked the group into going for ferals – the reasons were sound: no one will miss them, we’ll actually be helping out, and they won’t be too smart.

We stopped by a contact of Schild’s to grab some gear: heavy manacles for if the buggers wake up from gel rounds and gel rounds to give them a reason to wake up. The Kikikakakurukaru girl, whatever her name was, apparently was willing to loan us a pretty beefy, if old, van to transport these things. So maybe she wasn’t useless after all.

Frei's Journal

Well, another wonderful day, second time I “died” this week there is something special with watching your flesh mend and close over even worse feeling it, not sure which was worse the feeling of the gun shot itself or that, no, scratch that the healing was worse by a mile, not sure I will ever get use to that feeling, I am going to need to turn my jacket over for repairs at Ming’s tomorrow however I have been able to get my hands on 3 trashed decks hopefully I can make something useful out of them or at lest start to, while I lay low for a few days.

As for our run, I am getting really sick of the Matrix “specialists” this team have ended up with two having come and gone now virtually the same day they joined the team, fucking useless but either way it was a success, high calibre bullets aside we where able to trace the shipment back to a warehouse and the storage “box” it was found in with the help of scared shitless “friend” however we ran into a cybered up asian man outside of the “box” a currier of some sort with a head in a bag belonging to a Vory member who disappeared in Macao inside of the “box” we found more crates filled with missing Vory members and smell was “interesting”.

Blackout our short lived tecnomance teammate noted a camera and the two deckers behind it, we decided to fuck off after he had taken care of it while we were getting out of there lo and behold a car come barrelling down the alleyway not far from us and Titan was able to take out the driver and the car came to crashing stop, the two deckers identified by the datajacks and their decks were still alive if messed up badly but one was dying hover we took care of that after all Loakim wanted them alive and we intended to deliver them as such so we grabbed them and what useful stuff we could find and I lit the car on fire with the gas we found the the trunk and my lighter, no need to repeat the incident in Sai Kung with dragon fire.

We stuffed the two guys into the back of the van and while I drove following Blackouts car on to the highway Kuei was taking care of the dying man and we had a chat with his friend when he woke up during the ride though Titan knocked him out for our and his safety however I spotted a tail, dressed in red and driving red high end bikes, I alerted the Vory that we are coming in hot.

I decided play it calm and keep driving as normal however a chance to lose them appeared in the form of a hijacked truck with a big crane rig mounted on it and swing from it along with HKPF hot on its ass going up on to the highway we were on, now I floored it and zipped past the truck as close as I could to shake my tail I was able to preform the maneuver in this brick of a van but sadly we only lost one of our tail this way and only because he got stuck in traffic, Titan recognised who these guys.

The Chargers a racing team that got kicked out for cheating and now ran as enforcers to the Red Dragon Association, well fuck, the Chargers positions themselves around the van with two behind it and one on either side, I side slam the right hand guy and tries to force him up against the outer wall of the highway, his bike is mess up pretty badly and the driver has a hard time keeping control of it, now the guy on the other side opens his helmet and speaks, commenting on how rude it was to damage his fellows bike and how he needed us to hand over the guys we kidnapped but I told him straight that we could not do that, we had employers that wanted them and that the Chargers needed to sort it out with them not us.

Me and the Charger’s boss talked from some more time until it was time to turn off the highway as we came down I hear a shout from behind from my teammate Kuei warning me of what I already see myself a mana barrier placed a cross the road, shit was the first thing that entered my mind along with did the Chargers set us up? and I slam the hand brake trying to turn the van around so not to slam into the mana barrier and get crushed between the van and the barrier, Titan and Kuei will be fine but me not so much.

I was not able to make 180 hairpin turn but I was able to stop the van from hitting the barrier with the van being almost 90 degrees on the road, next thing I know is two very hard punches to the back and the sound of bullets passing the skin of the van.

The fact that I wake up with my head resting on the steering wheel tells me that I got knocked out and to my right Titan fires off a spell and I can hear the cries from the guys getting hit up in windows above us, we decide to bail the van and make the rest of the trip on foot and we can hear gun fire as the “murder hobos” engage with the Chargers behind us.

First out is Kuei with our “sleeping guests” and he is able to get open the door to a house next to us and when he made it inside safe I got a bad feeling but I was up next so I grabbed the stuff we took from the guests and ran out, next I know I get shot just as I enter the door way to be honest feel the shot more then hear it as I said it is a weird feeling to have your chest blown out and I remember taking a few more steps as the momentum and force of the shot flings me inside.

Next thing I know is I have been pulled in further most likely by Kuei and it is not until after a call with Loakim I realised that I was not in my metahuman from and well that I was not making much sense, shock is it not wonderful thing but we were able to make it to the meet with out “sleeping guests” and the Vory was waiting on us.

It was pleasant surprisingly and we were able to hand over the guys to them and while we lost out bonus these Vory gave us two AKs non the less and Kuei patched up on of the Russians who had had his ribs broken, I think because of Loakim and we made some new “friends” I wished the Russians good luck in the coming shit storm after I handed over Kuei and Titan’s cut before for I headed home and I chose not cut in Blackout, Kuei has some complaints but if he wants Blackout to have pay work barely any work and disappearing once trouble heads our way he can pay Blackout with his own cut, but in my mind my real prise was our new “friends” in the Vory and the three messed up decks who I hope have enough whole parts in them to make one functioning deck out of though I can pick up what ever I need from Jackie-boy.

Hot on the trail

Frei took the deck and internal bits to Jackieboy to work his magic. He had another customer at the time, so he had limited time to focus on it (cracking it as a favor might have been a factor as well). He managed to crack the data, but it is still encrypted.

Titan an Kuei decided to set up surveillance on the Jade Moth warehouse. After a short while a delivery van showed and it became clear that they had the calhots, but were not the ones who stole them. Ioakim agreed that killing the Jade Moth would not send the desired message, and that finding and punishing the thieves would be the proper response. Harid, the driver, found them when he was picking up supplies for the company. They were on the verge of destroying or ditching the calhots when Kuei knocked at the door. The manager spooked and triggered his DocWagon band (unbeknownst to Titan and Kuei. After some persuasion, Harid agreed to show Titan and Kuei where he found the calhots. Fortunately, Titan and Kuei were able to convince him to get moving before the DocWagon response team arrived, and they began the trip to the warehouse in Sai Kung.

Meanwhile, Frei finally got the keys to her new place. She also managed to hash out an repayment agreement for her old place.

Alexei's Log - Expanding the Circle

We finished the job, by the skin of our teeth. I took another crack at the door’s maglock. Some quick thinking and rewiring got us past that inexplicably high-security lock. Maybe I should go back and see what they were protecting there.

After the door popped open, we had to bypass a surprisingly strong ward. Luckily my scary friend and I were both able to slip past it eventually by disguising our signature to match someone allowed in. It took a few tries – hey, I am new at this thing – but eventually we slipped inside.

I went to the door to listen for a response. Invisibility, sadly, does not hide noise. But no one reacted, no customers came in (we aimed for their low point), and we had some time to make our move. Schild took to finding things while I kept the door monitored.

Everything was clean, until Schild luckily spotted a hidden compartment on the side of a table. A button press revealed a computer terminal in AR – she took care of that and grabbed the paydata, triggering an alarm. I considered my options for holding the door and barred it with the gurney nearby.

It worked for about 3 seconds. I had left the room and Schild was right behind me (she hit the ward while I slipped through), when the door exploded inward. Some shrapnel lodged itself in Schild’s jacket, but she came through the ward just as quickly. We vanished into the crowd, but saw a spirit or other astral form following us. It left us alone after we scrambled our signatures, then we dropped off the paydata.

After that we met up with a new colleague – well, an old one of Schild’s.

We travelled by subway to a new job. My debts were slowly melting away, job by job, so I was excited. Schild was apparently allergic to the subway car, but I was unchanged.

The Johnson was in a closed club. Fairly swank, it looked. He served us some decent food, and he asked us to hit some rival drug sellers – who apparently either shipped over some contraband that’s competing with our Johnson’s goals or they stole a shipment from the Johnson – honestly don’t care. I don’t like taking out people who don’t deserve it, but luckily these do. They will be armed, they have caused damage to the world, and they should be removed.

Frei's Journal

So me and my new teammate, Kurov, finished the leg work needed to do the job and we decided to take long way around to avoid detection, it went well until we ran into a SWAT raid on an illegal lab of some sort down in the tunnels.

Me and Kurov decided that the best idea was to get out of there as fast and quiet as we could, unfortunate I was not as fast and quiet as I had hoped and I ended up getting caught.

I knew there was no talking my way out of this when the first officer tackled me bedsides I had a run in with the local SWAT before and knew very well that one out of two thing would happen if I got caught, a decade or two in a magical prison or in the employ of a Great Dragon, Faurhass more specifically and I am not going back, I AM NOTGOINGBACK.

I can’t remember much after that other then that mantra ringing in my mind, I know that I was shot more then once after my nose hit the dirt once after my legs gave out from under me, I suppose I can thank my new Draconian regeneration I got out of there alive.

I am not sure when Kurov caught up with me but I knew he had seen me and I ended having to explain what I am to him, sigh… another one who knows.

So we moved on with the mission and we made it to the back door of the store front after having played bossy corporate employee and her underling to blend in.

It would seam we had not run out off bad luck yet and the lock stopped us flat and now we have a silent alarm going off no doubt, this just is not my day…